


dreams that can come true

by tau



Category: Persona 5
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Alternate Universe - Post-Canon, M/M, Mutual Masturbation, Persona 5: The Royal Spoilers, demiurge!joker
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-05
Updated: 2021-02-05
Packaged: 2021-03-16 14:00:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,722
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29208507
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tau/pseuds/tau
Summary: He’s thought about it before. If he just reached inside, dug his hands in andpulledon the fringes of the collective unconscious, he could bring Akechi back. Could even bring back Isshiki Wakaba, Okumura Kunikazu, and the rest of them if he felt so inclined. He knows he could even if he’s never tried, the power pulsing through his blood, making his fingers twitch. It wouldn’t even be particularly hard. And it wouldn’t have to stop there; if Yaldabaoth could manipulate the masses and Maruki could alter reality to his whim, Akira could do any of those things, and more.(Turns out, shooting a couple gods in the face makes you something of a god yourself.)
Relationships: Akechi Goro/Kurusu Akira, Akechi Goro/Persona 5 Protagonist
Comments: 16
Kudos: 243





	dreams that can come true

His client’s shadow is a small, pathetic thing, all gangly limbs and dull eyes. There’s a spark of recognition in them as he approaches, only to be shuttered immediately by a slideshow of panic, confusion, resignation; a wounded animal accepting its fate. It’s a terribly familiar sight.

“Kurusu-san?” she says quietly, flinching away under his attention. “Is that you?”

Akira nods, observing the shadow. The metaverse shifts and shimmers in anticipation, invisible veins coiling under his feet, ready to reform itself to his desire. He digs his heel into its soft gut.

The shadow crosses her arms, tucking them into herself. Her yellow eyes look past him. “Are you here to hurt me?”

“I’m here to help.”

“Help?” She twitches and shakes, fingers clawing into her skin. “What can a therapist do for me? Tell me everything’s going to be okay? ‘Time heals all wounds’? I’ve heard it all already. I don’t care. If you’re not going to bring him back to me, I don’t care.”

Akira thumbs at the hilt of his dagger. The shadow isn’t dangerous, not to him at least. The cynical, depressed ones are the least delicate to talk to, letting words flow off them easily. Too indifferent to be provoked. Easier to handle, but more difficult to remove the mask. Nothing he can’t deal with, though; every case is different, but talk to enough shadows and over time patterns emerge. The human psyche is surprisingly predictable.

It’s best when he doesn’t have to fight them, but less complicated to just beat them up. He weighs the options in his mind.

Sada Masako had been in a car accident. A terrible tragedy. Four dead, including her fiancé, and a child. One survivor: her. She spent months healing physically, but nothing could be done to heal the gaping, festering wound in her heart, and nothing _had_ been done until it was putrid and necrotizing, until she was distorted and ugly with grief.

Her file was a neat checklist of trauma, anxiety, and depression. She couldn’t drive anymore, couldn’t even be in a car without breaking out into a panic. She refused all forms of therapy until she didn’t have the willpower to resist anymore, but even therapy hadn’t helped. Can’t fix someone who doesn’t think they can be fixed, after all. At some point her family caught wind of the cognitive therapy specialist in Shinjuku who could heal all manner of mental ailments in an instant, like a miracle, and brought her to him.

Satanael stands by, in the fringes of Akira’s mind, waiting for his orders.

“Masako,” he says gently, “bringing him back won’t help you. You have to move on.”

“If you can’t do it, I have nothing to say to you.”

“He’s dead. He’s not coming back. The sooner you accept that, the better,” Akira says, more firmly.

“ _No!_ ” she screeches, a single, piercing sound. “How dare you– I can’t, without him I can’t– you’re the ruler of this world, aren’t you? You have to. You have to _bring him back!_ ”

It’s a relief when the shadow contorts and dissolves, revealing its true form, enraged and grotesque, and the mantle of Joker drapes around him like the hug of a familiar friend. Satanael tugs at him, ready to come out, and he lets his mask dissolve into blue flame.

He aims his gun and shoots.

It’s a clean shot to the head. Neat and efficient; Satanael purrs, pleased. The shadow melts back into the shape of a woman and crumples to the ground with an agonized wail, dissolving into sobs. Akira lets her cry, waits for her shaking and whimpering to die down into something comprehensible.

“How can I live without him? Why couldn’t I have died too?”

He reaches his hand out to the shadow. “Masako, you need to move on,” he says again. “That’s what he would want for you.”

“I know,” she says brokenly. “You’re right. I know. I want to. Please…”

The shadow accepts his hand before vanishing in a spark of light. He grabs her treasure, feeling it morph into something tangible in his fist, and the illusion is shattered. Reality fades in like breaking through the surface of water, droplets sliding off his back as the world ripples outward. In his hand is an engagement ring.

He’s in his office. The real Sada Masako lies on his couch, unconscious and none the wiser. Akira glances at the ring on her finger before deciding to pocket the one in his hand.

_I could have brought him back_ , he thinks, staring down at her, feeling the power in his palm. He can do anything with just a name. But taking her heart and removing the pain is the lesser of two evils, and the path he would rather take, even if in the end he’s still bending reality and shaping hearts to his will. That’s what he tells himself at least. But really, maybe he’s no different than Maruki. A bigger hypocrite, perhaps, and a better liar, for sure.

“Kurusu-san…?” Masako’s voice breaks the silence of the room. She looks dazed and confused, but manages to get herself up into a sitting position without trouble.

Morgana hops onto her lap and meows, encouraging her to run her fingers absently through his fur. He can’t follow Akira into the other world anymore, but he _is_ a good therapy cat, not to mention irresistibly cute in his tiny _Service Animal_ vest, so he’s made himself comfortable in Akira’s clinic nonetheless. Akira suspects half his clients come back because of the cat, or come in because they’d heard through word of mouth that he has one, so it’s hard to mind.

Masako looks brighter already, her eyes alert as she looks back at him. Nothing like the restless, despondent client that came in half an hour ago.

Like a miracle.

“How are you feeling?” Akira asks.

“I feel… good,” she says, looking surprised to admit it. “I don’t know how you do it, but I feel– I feel like a new person.”

“Perfect,” he says, scribbling a note into his clipboard. “I know it’s a lot to process. Take all the time you need.”

When her time is up he leads her outside the room, and goes through the usual post-session administrative motions. Morgana perches on the counter, begging to be scratched behind his ears with his big blue eyes.

“I’d like to check back in with you in a week, but you can call me if anything comes up before then,” he says, checking over his schedule. “Does the same time next Friday work for you?”

She agrees easily, and he pencils the appointment in.

“Would you like me to call you a taxi?” he asks.

She hesitates, like she’s about to refuse on reflex, before smiling. “Yes. I… yes. I would like that. Thank you.”

Akira smiles back, letting it reach his eyes.

* * *

The rest of his clients that day are routine; he senses no distortions from them, no need to do anything but listen and provide kind smiles and gentle guidance. These cases are nice. Like this, he can pretend he’s just a normal person – a normal therapist – without strange almighty supernatural powers he shouldn’t have.

Of course, he hasn’t been a normal person in a long time, even before he killed a god, and ironically, that’s the one thing he can’t do anything about.

Still, he can’t really complain that he has the power to help people, to make a difference. Isn’t that what he became leader of the Phantom Thieves for? Morgana has beat the point into his head often enough over the years. Akira suspects maybe Morgana’s a little jealous; maybe he misses the power that came with the metaverse and personas. Akira can’t deny that Satanael is a constant presence in the back of his mind, more than any other persona rattling around in his head, and without him Akira might have lost his grip on reality long ago. Others are there too; Futsunushi is almost a constant, with how much time he spends around Morgana, and he feels the rest somewhere in him, sleeping, ready to offer him their power.

“It’s okay,” Morgana affirms when he brings it up over dinner, taking just enough of a break from his convenience store sushi to talk. “I mean, it would be nice to give you support in Mementos, or whatever the metaverse is manifesting as these days, but it’s not like you need it.”

“I could probably figure out how to make it happen,” Akira says. They’re dropping Morgana off at Sojiro’s tonight; maybe Futaba would be able to brainstorm something. Most of the thieves have moved on with their lives, haven’t even thought about the metaverse in years except to rib Akira about his attachment to it. He supposes he _is_ the weird one, to have not let go of something that happened as long ago as high school. “I’m sure I could get all of you back in there again. It’d be fun.”

“Yeah, probably,” Morgana concedes. “But it’s okay. There’s lots to do in the real world too.”

Akira watches him fondly as he digs into a piece of tuna. “I could even make you human,” he says. “Didn’t you want that? You could have opposable thumbs.”

Morgana’s tail flicks. “What’s gotten into you?”

Akira hums. Mentally backtracks. “Just thinking. Don’t worry about it.”

It’s just a thought experiment, really. Not a conversation they’ve entertained in a long time, and even then only reserved for when Akira was in the right mood. If he thought about it hard enough, it’d probably happen, so he lets himself stop thinking about it.

Morgana eyes him, his posture shifting – a slight ripple of muscle under his shiny coat. “Hey, you’re being weird. I thought we were over this stuff. You want to talk about it?”

“Not really,” he says, and changes the subject. “You ever think about what happened to Akechi?”

“Huh? Sure,” says Morgana. He indulges Akira’s evasiveness, even if he doesn’t look happy about it. “What about it?”

“Today’s client reminded me. I just think about him sometimes. Is that weird?”

Morgana makes a dissenting noise. “He did… leave an impression. But you knew him better than I did, and he was different with you than with us.”

The thought brings up a flare of emotion Akira should have long smothered. He feels almost pathetic as he asks, “You think so?”

“Duh. He actually _liked_ you.”

Akira laughs softly. “I liked him too,” he admits quietly. Then, barely above a whisper: “Sometimes I miss him.”

Morgana nods. “If only things had been different.” He blinks slowly at Akira, who can almost see the tiny cogs turning in his little cat brain. “You could’ve made things different, I guess. You must’ve thought about… bringing him back before, huh?”

He’s thought about it before. If he just reached inside, dug his hands in and _pulled_ on the fringes of the collective unconscious, he could bring Akechi back. Could even bring back Isshiki Wakaba, Okumura Kunikazu, and the rest of them if he felt so inclined. He knows he could even if he’s never tried, the power pulsing through his blood, making his fingers twitch. It wouldn’t even be particularly hard. And it wouldn’t have to stop there; if Yaldabaoth could manipulate the masses and Maruki could alter reality to his whim, Akira could do any of those things, and more.

It would be so _easy_.

But he promised Akechi that last night in Leblanc, and he’s had enough of false gods and their grand schemes anyways. So he doesn’t do any of that. Instead, he manages quietly as a therapist, living one day at a time and stealing hearts on the side, as he’s always done.

“It doesn’t really matter,” says Akira. “I wouldn’t do it anyways. He wouldn’t have wanted that.”

God, Akechi would be _furious_. Akira has thought about that too, whenever he felt selfish enough: all the feral rage of the Akechi who knew he was a dead man, cutting up shadows with unrepressed glee, no longer mincing words to be palatable to Akira or the thieves, directed at him.

Morgana’s soft meow cuts into his thoughts. “You’re a good friend. I’m glad you’re the one who got this weird god power and not another Maruki.”

“Me too,” says Akira, though he’s only half certain he agrees.

* * *

He’s just left the metaverse when there’s a knock on the clinic door, loud enough that Akira can hear it through the extra wall of his office. Walk-ins aren’t exactly common in his practice, except maybe the stray drunk who stumbles in sometimes – it is Shinjuku, after all – but this is his last appointment for the day anyways. Sometimes he just stays in his office after hours, eating dinner and talking to Morgana, so late nights aren’t foreign to him.

Taking extra care to close the door as softly as he can to not wake up his sleeping client, he’s barely entered the reception room when the door bursts open, and the person who walks is nothing less than a ghost, crashing through like a hurricane trying to knock down all the walls. Akira can barely brace himself before he registers just _who_ is standing in his clinic, looking for all the world like he belongs there.

_Akechi Goro_ is here, like he’s just walked out of a dream, and as Akira recalls his conversation the previous night, he thinks with a growing horror that he could have done just that.

He didn’t… did he?

He doesn’t know.

Years of only memories have faded Akira’s mental image of Akechi somewhat, and these days it feels like he’s piecing together disconnected fragments to form an imperfect whole. Dreams of Akechi are fuzzy around the edges, not quite exact in detail. Sometimes he’s only wearing one glove. Sometimes his eyes are too bright of a red. The exact expression of his face feels off, too harsh or too soft. Nothing like the dreams he had when he was younger, of them at the beach together, or Akechi inexplicably in his class, or in his bed, which had all had the vivid charm of a teenage boy’s overly elaborate fantasy. But this Akechi is the most realistic he’s seen as far as he can recall, even if his face is a little sharper, his hair longer, his body filled out.

If he had to conjure up an Akechi in his mid-twenties, he supposes this isn’t very far off.

“So this is what you’re up to. Fixing people up the way you always liked.” Akechi’s gaze sweeps over the room, from the motivational posters lining the soft cream walls to the magazine rack next to the seats in the waiting area, then at Akira, standing at the opposite door tracking every movement. “I must say, it’s very modest. Quaint, even. Very you.”

It talks like Akechi. Sounds like him, in that exact tone that was always a little too light to be condescending but too condescending to be kind, and that’s the scary thing. Akira swallows the lump that’s formed in his throat, and wonders what the best thing is to say to a ghost.

“You’re a hard one to track down,” Akechi says with just enough of a sneer to feel real, not at all bothered by the silence. “I had to get in touch with Sakamoto, of all people.”

Akechi’s eyes are that deep, wine red he remembers. No traces of yellow. Or maybe that’s just the nature of Akira’s power, that he can bring shadows to life from memory and they look just the same as any other living, breathing, _thinking_ human, without any knowledge of its creator.

“Are you real?” he asks anyways.

Akechi fixes him with a flat stare.

“I didn’t create you?” he tries instead.

Akechi’s eyes narrow. “And how exactly would you have done that?”

An Akechi of Akira’s creation probably would’ve figured it out by now – after all, he’d figured it out the first time. He’d probably be here _because_ he figured out he wasn’t real. The Akechi of his subconsciousness would’ve woken up this morning, realized something was wrong and that it was Akira’s fault, then found exactly where Akira was, all in the span of a few hours.

“No, never mind.” Akechi pinches his temple. “It’s got to do with whatever operation you’re running out of this dinky box you call a clinic, I’m sure.”

“I thought it was quaint,” Akira quips, just to see the microscopic way Akechi twitches.

Akechi’s face smooths over quickly, and he gives Akira another unimpressed stare. It’s intense and discomfiting.

“Well I’d love to catch up but I, uh, still have a client,” Akira says, pointing a thumb over his shoulder. “You can wait out here, or, you know. Go wherever you like.”

“Fine,” says Akechi, crossing his arms.

He’s surprised when his client finally wakes and leaves twenty minutes later to see Akechi actually does stay, settled patiently in one of the waiting room chairs, and maybe he is a real person and not just an actualization. It’s surreal; all of his dreams involving Akechi have them in their usual haunts, or with Akechi injected awkwardly into some vague high school memory, or with Akechi on Shido’s ship. Places he’d known while Akechi was still alive. He’s never even thought about seeing Akechi in his own clinic. The idea makes him feel strangely nostalgic, if slightly distant. Like an out of body experience. There’s so much to catch up on that the thought alone exhausts him a bit. He just wants to get out of here.

He glances at the clock; it’s the middle of rush hour, but they might make it to Shibuya in half an hour by train if they leave now. If there are enough people on the train, it’ll be hard to hold a conversation.

“Right,” says Akechi, putting his phone back into his pocket and rising to his feet. “Well then–”

“Are you hungry?” Akira interrupts, letting a pleasant smile fall onto his face and moving to lock up without waiting for an answer. “Let’s get dinner.”

* * *

The diner in Shibuya has long since been bought out and renovated, though it’s still a diner, just under a different name. The new owner has no tolerance for students sitting around to study or couples talking about their feelings for hours, demanding faster turnaround given the high foot traffic in the area. It’s nice, because it means service is quick and they only have room for small talk as they eat, and it gives him time to compare the exact way Akechi’s lips wrap around his food with his own memories.

Satiated and with the premise of a _talk_ hanging over them like a cloud, they walk together slowly around Shibuya. Akira pulls Akechi into one of Haru’s ever-expanding collection of cafés off the central street when they pass by it, and pays for crepes and coffee for the both of them to enjoy in the café’s outdoor seating. It feels familiar, like falling back into a routine he didn’t know he was missing.

One thing does stand out to him as different. Whenever they hung out as high schoolers playing at being friends, Akechi would get recognized on the street constantly. He used to take it in stride, the way people would double-take and whisper at the sight of him, though occasionally when someone did approach, Akira could watch his mask crack ever so slightly. Now, nobody spares a glance at Akechi. Like he never mattered. Or maybe, like he never existed.

Akira knows what it’s like to not exist, and it’s not a good feeling. But from what he remembers of Akechi, it’s probably welcome, and maybe it’s that reassurance that makes Akechi look almost relaxed as they sit across from each other.

He blows slightly on his coffee, but the steam blows back at him and fogs his glasses. He sighs and takes them off.

“You still wear those,” Akechi says, more of a judgment than a question.

“Yeah. New frames. Cheaper when you don’t actually have a prescription.” Akira laughs and wipes the glasses on his sweater, but it's not the right material and mostly smears his accumulated face oils around so he gives up and sets them aside. “Makes me look more professional. Like I lost my eyesight studying all night for six years or something. But they’re also in style, which shows I’m hip and trendy.”

Akechi’s gaze is appraising, and Akira doesn’t know what he finds. “I didn’t expect you would be a therapist, after what happened with Maruki.”

“Well, he wasn’t that great of a counselor to begin with. I ended up being the one giving him advice half the time.” He was always good at that, he found out early; he was a good listener, and somehow people liked what he had to say. Now, he gets paid for it.

“I hardly think that would have raised your opinion of the profession.”

“I mean, it left me with a lot of issues to work out. Plus, some– other stuff.” He shrugs. “Anyways, things just happened, I guess.”

“Doesn’t seem like something that _just happens_.” Akechi takes a long moment to sip his own coffee. He keeps his tone deliberately light, his expression disinterested, as if this is an everyday interrogation and Akira is just another petty criminal. “That other stuff, I’m guessing, has to do with what you said earlier. Asking if I was real.”

It’s just like Akechi to pick up on that, Akira thinks warily. “That… I’m not sure how to explain it.”

One look at Akechi’s face tells him that’s not going to fly. “Try me.”

“A lot came up after you were gone,” says Akira. “Things were weird for a while. Still is, sometimes.”

“No weirder than an egomaniac turning the world into a personal eden, I’m sure.”

_You have no idea._ Akira stares into his coffee, wondering how he’s going to explain it. _Hey, Akechi, you weren’t around when we killed that demiurge the first time, but remember when Maruki replaced that guy and we had to stop him from taking over the entire world? Well, I kind of woke up the next day in jail with the same powers and I don’t know why but it’s kind of fucked up, and also maybe fucking_ me _up._

It sounds stupid in his head, but that’s more or less how it is, so he explains it a bit more delicately out loud, leaving out the part where being all powerful and having presumably infinite control over humanity messes with his brain and makes him question reality. Though, he supposes that is pretty obvious.

“Hm.” Akechi is doing that thing where he rests his elbow in his hand, and his chin in the other while he thinks. It’s still charming after all these years. “So after you killed Yaldabaoth, Maruki saw his chance and took his place. We know that much.” Akira nods, to be diplomatic. “But there was nobody to replace him once he was defeated. Removing Maruki created a power vacuum, and you were the next best choice.”

That’s a good enough explanation as any, and straight to the point. Akira’s wondered about why he received this power, if some higher power had chosen him or maybe it was a Wild Card thing he didn’t understand, but didn’t care enough to think too deeply about it. It’s not like knowing would make him less of a god. But Akechi was always smart like that. Akira got good grades in school, sure – was even the top of his class more than a few times – but he just had a good eye for detail and a vast memory for useless trivia. Maybe he could be considered smart, if nobody thought too hard about it, tried to dig deeper and unravel the facade. Morgana had always told him he would be a lot sharper if only he applied himself, were less indifferent, which seemed like a generous assessment.

Akechi wasn’t like that. Akechi was driven and smart in that way he could puzzle together a case from the barest evidence; the way he would always be three steps ahead; the way he could synthesize even the most abstract concepts in a blink. He asked questions Akira didn’t even think to ask. He spent years on his revenge, single-minded in his determination, and never let someone like Akira make him falter.

Akira always loved and hated that about him.

“Am I really the best choice, though?” he asks, though in truth it’s rhetorical. He hasn’t bothered himself with that question in years, not when he’s the one who determines the answers.

Akechi eyes him sharply. That’s another thing: he always seemed to see right through the fog of purposely vague, elusive questions and into Akira. “You made the right call before, even though you thought I would die,” he says. “You know better than anyone else how ultimate control corrupts. If you didn’t have this power, then it stands to reason someone else would. Though it pains me to admit, if anyone is qualified to not abuse it, it would be you.”

Akira smiles, feels the sharp edges of it slice into his cheeks. “Who says I’m not corrupted?”

Akechi rolls his eyes. “If I suspected you were asking because you genuinely wanted to know the answer and not to hear the sound of your own voice, I might have entertained you. But I know that _you_ know better.”

“Do I?” Akira purrs, and watches, fascinated and delighted as Akechi’s eyes narrow at being thrown yet another meaningless question. “It’s been eight years. Nobody is the same in their twenties as they were as a teenager. For all you know, I’ve been using my power however I like. Maybe I did create you, and the only reason you’re sitting here, in front of me, is because I willed it. Maybe I thought Maruki was right.”

“For fuck’s sake,” Akechi growls, in that low familiar way that makes warmth spread pleasantly through Akira’s chest, “stop asking things you already know the answer to. I don’t have the time to deal with you talking in circles.”

Akira remembers, vividly, during the brief months together in Maruki’s reality, how much fun it was to rile Akechi up, to figure out what exact combination of words would make him finally snap. And he remembers, too, how he used to wonder what would happen when Akechi finally did – maybe he would claw into Akira’s cheeks with his gauntlet, wrap his sharp fingers around his neck and squeeze. Aim that gun once more at Akira’s head.

He shivers, and tempers those thoughts. “So why _are_ you here?” he asks, because he genuinely doesn’t know. “After all these years, why now?”

“I’m surprised your godly powers haven’t told you. Maruki seemed to know everything about everyone, after all.”

A good point, which is no surprise coming from Akechi. He _could_ hear thoughts, if he concentrated hard enough, but it freaked him out too much to do on purpose. Sometimes streams of random people’s consciousness filtered through anyways in his weaker moments, but never once Akechi’s. “I avoid it as much as possible, but _you’re_ avoiding the question.”

Akechi crosses his arms. “My parole officer recommended I go to therapy, though from the way it was worded, it wasn’t a suggestion. Sae-san mentioned you had pursued something along that vein but she didn’t know the details, and it piqued my curiosity.”

“Your curiosity hadn’t been piqued any time in the last eight years?” Akira asks. “I mean, it wouldn’t have killed you to say, ‘hi, I’m alive,’ or something.”

Akechi sighs, long-suffering. “I called once, in prison. You changed your number,” he says after a long moment.

Vaguely, Akira realizes that must mean Akechi had his number memorized. Probably not something worth dwelling on, considering the fact Akira was very likely his only non-professional contact. Still, bringing it up would annoy him. “You had my number memorized?”

Akechi scowls as expected. “It’s not difficult to remember a few contacts,” he says. “Shido cycled through plenty of numbers, and I couldn’t save any of them.”

Shido is dangerous territory, Akira thinks, even if Akechi is the one to bring him up with his unique brand of condescension mixed with self-deprecation. He’s not about to explore further. “Well, give me your phone then. I’ll put my number in.”

Akechi looks like he’s debating the wisdom of obliging, but soon acquiesces. Akira types in his details and texts himself, then snaps a selfie for good measure before returning the phone.

“In any case, if you need a shrink, I can’t take you on. We’re friends; it’s unethical,” he says. Never mind his extremely dubious use of the metaverse on his clients. “But I could refer you to someone, if you needed.”

“Friends,” Akechi echoes, like he’s testing the shape of the word in his mouth, wondering if someone could be dead for almost a decade and still have friends. Maybe Akira could’ve chosen a better word to describe a relationship where two people are friends but one tried to kill the other and proceeded to presumably die himself, the equivalent of putting “it’s complicated” on Facebook. “No, I wasn’t going to ask that of you, and I’ve been seeing someone for a while anyways. She… suggested I reach out. And, well, I suppose I wanted to see you.”

Akira’s not typically a man of many words, but it’s not often he finds himself stunned to silence. _I wanted to see you_. The words settle pleasantly in his gut. He’d always wanted to hear Akechi show any sign he cared, but would the Akechi of his making ever say something like this?

No, probably not. The Akechi he remembered was happy to die before he’d ever admit any sentimentality towards Akira. He used to tell himself that’s what he liked about Akechi when he was really just trying to make himself feel better about liking someone who by his own admission hated him.

Eight years is a long time, he reminds himself. While the Akechi Goro in his memories never aged, this one did. This one has a fully matured prefrontal cortex and goes to therapists who probably helped him work through all his issues and presumably has his own stable and established life that was, before today, completely free of Akira’s meddling. This one is real and beyond all his expectations.

“Please stop smiling,” Akechi says, stabbing at his crepe with a fork. “You’re making me uncomfortable.”

Akira tries, he does, but he can’t help it, so instead he hides behind his hand. “Sorry. It made me happy. I really missed you.”

Akechi freezes, which is both hilarious and fascinating to watch. This is an emotion he’s never seen before on him, one he would never have injected into the hypothetical Akechi he’s been rebuilding in his mind. Not that he needs a replica when the real one is in front of him and so interesting.

“Yes, I suppose it makes sense to miss someone you haven’t seen in a while,” he concedes, which is as close to _I missed you too_ as Akira will ever get.

It’s so ridiculous he laughs. They haven’t seen each other in almost a decade. Akira spent the entire part of that time thinking Akechi was dead. Who knows what Akechi had been thinking during that same timespan. It shouldn’t be so hard to just say it. _I miss you. Let’s start over._ But this is still familiar, the way Akechi makes him feel ridiculous and overwhelmed all at once.

Akechi makes a face when Akira starts laughing, but seems to understand it’s not at his expense and goes back to dissecting his crepe. Akira thinks he catches the edges of a reluctant smile break on his face, and it just makes him laugh more.

* * *

The muffled knock gives him a flash of déjà vu.

“Can you check who it is, Mona?” he asks. Morgana meows dutifully, jumping off the client’s lap and stretching before heading to the door. Akira holds it wide enough for him to slip through.

Not even a few seconds later, Morgana is screeching, “Akira! _Akira!_ Oh my god, you need to come here _right now!_ ”

“Your cat is pretty noisy,” his client comments.

“Sorry about that.” He rubs the back of his neck. “Do you mind if I…?” The man nods, so he goes over to the door and peeks out. “Mona? What’s–”

He answers his own question when he sees Akechi Goro, yet again standing in the middle of his clinic, and looking just as out of place as yesterday.

“Ah,” he says for lack of anything better. “Morgana, I’m kinda busy, can you entertain him for a bit?”

“What? Entertain _him_?” Morgana yowls. “Me? How?”

“I’m hardly a pet that needs _entertaining–_ ” Akira hears before he shuts the door and tries to refocus on his client.

It doesn’t really work, especially when he can hear Morgana and Akechi’s muffled conversation in the other room, and he knows his client can tell he’s thrown off for the rest of the hour. He apologizes profusely, offers a free session, and they wrap up. Morgana and Akechi are sitting on opposite chairs when he comes back out, staring at each other – Akechi unphased and Morgana distrustful.

“You two getting along?” he asks.

Morgana trots over to his side. “He’s suspicious, but it doesn’t seem like he wants to kill you anymore, so I think it’s okay,” he says, sounding pleased with himself to offer the information over. “Hey, it’s pretty weird though. We were just talking about him the other day, weren’t we? And now he just… shows up out of nowhere.”

“Yeah, it’s weird,” he agrees. To Akechi, he says, “You don’t need to keep ambushing me here when you’ve got my number, you know.”

“Can’t a _friend_ visit another _friend_ just because?” Akechi throws back.

Morgana glances between the two of them, then makes eye contact with Akira, as if sensing he’s missing a part of the bigger picture. “I’m going to take a walk,” he announces, demanding for Akira to let him out.

“Business seems good,” Akechi says once they’re alone, with a tone that suggests he doesn’t exactly care either way.

“It pays the bills,” says Akira, matching him.

“You handle everything here yourself?”

“Yeah, easier to keep the whole metaverse thing a secret that way,” Akira says, twirling a strand of his ever unruly hair. “Morgana is a good helper. Sometimes I think he’s better at this than me.”

Akechi grunts noncommittally, some leftover distaste for the cat perhaps.

“It _would_ be nice to have someone else around though,” says Akira, making a show of giving Akechi a once over. “You want to be my receptionist? That would be kinda hot.”

Akechi glowers at him. “I’m leaving.”

Akira laughs. “Wait, wait.” He hooks his fingers around Akechi’s wrist. Akechi flinches under his touch. _Doesn’t like physical contact_ , Akira adds to his mental list, and lets go. “You said you’re on parole, so they probably want you to keep a job, right? Now I’m offering you one.”

“Who says I don’t have a job?” Akechi says, as if he has anything better to do in the middle of a workday than seek out Akira. “And even if I didn’t, why would I be tripping over myself for the chance to work under _you_?”

Akira resists the urge to make a jab about Akechi being under him. “I’m sure all the employers in Tokyo are lining up to claim you with your record and sunny disposition.”

Akechi’s face darkens further. “I was a teen idol, if you don’t remember. I could teach you something about disposition.”

“C’mon, you’re so pretty, you’d get me so many clients. Between you and Morgana, we could corner the market.”

“Right,” says Akechi. “A veritable therapy monopoly.”

Akira snickers. “The offer’s there if you need it. No pressure.”

“How generous, as always.” Akechi grunts. “Show me around first.”

“There’s not much to see,” says Akira, suddenly feeling more self-conscious than showing Akechi his dusty café attic as kids. The entire place is just three rooms: the reception, his office, and a bathroom. Not exactly an exciting grand tour. He leads Akechi into the office and tries not to look too awkward about it.

“You have a lot of stuff,” is the first thing Akechi notes, and _stuff_ is clearly a nicer word for _garbage_.

Akira rubs the back of his neck. “I didn’t want it to look like Maruki’s palace.” He’d decorated it to look warm and inviting, from the colors of the walls and furniture to the plush but somewhat bohemian couch. All the space he could feasibly use is filled with something: bookshelves, plants, gifts from his friends, as dissimilar as possible from the harsh, clinically white and spotless palace. He even avoids any white when he dresses; black and red were always his colors anyways.

“Hm, well it is _different_ ,” Akechi allows. “Color me surprised. I didn’t think you were a legitimate therapist.”

He follows Akechi’s gaze to the master’s degree framed on his wall, and the license next to it. “Oh, that old thing? Futaba hacked the university database; I never even had to set foot on campus. Too bad they didn’t have a course for cognitive psience.”

Akechi side-eyes him.

“Kidding,” says Akira. “Actually, I altered reality to make everyone think I went to school, and I even graduated top of my class.”

Akechi’s expression flatlines.

“Okay, you got me.” Akira holds his hands up. “It is a very real and very legitimate degree. I am a legitimate therapist. Want to hear about my thesis?”

Akechi’s silence says all he needs to know about that. Akira sighs, running his fingers over a scale The Thinker statue he bought during a museum trip with Yusuke while he waits for Akechi to finish taking apart his office with his eyes. Maybe they’ll finally dispense with the small talk and get down to why Akechi bothered to come back here in the first place.

“You said you could enter the metaverse,” says Akechi. “You do it from here?”

“Yeah. I mean, I can do it wherever I want, but there’s no reason to do it anywhere else.”

“Show me,” says Akechi.

“Uh… I could, but nobody else can enter.”

“Says who? Is there another fake god I don’t know about?” The look Akechi gives him makes him feel small. “I’m sure you can figure out how to let me in.”

“I’ll try.” Akira trains his eyes to the ground, imagines the world shivering beneath his feet, waves rippling out and pulling the both of them under. He tries to focus a bit more on Akechi, thinking about the whirling lines of his metaverse suit until they’re indistinguishable from the ripples, broken up only by the image of a gleaming black crow.

It takes a few seconds for the metaverse to wash over him. When he looks up again, nothing looks different. The only indication he’s no longer in the real world is the mask on his face.

“Hm,” says Akechi from beside him. “Your memory is a little off.”

The outfit looks almost right, but there’s clearly something wrong with it. Maybe the stripes are too thin? Not enough belts? Maybe he should have tried the white outfit instead.

Accurate or not, the sight of it brings back a flood of emotions, memories of fighting alongside Akechi without reservation, tearing into enemies together. Akechi, mocking him whenever he tripped up and growling if a shadow got a hit in. Akira, flustered when red eyes glared at him through the mask. Even now, it makes his pulse flutter a little.

Akechi’s own powers seem to be functioning, at least, if the laevatein he volleys at Akira means anything. Akira has a lot more control over the metaverse than he does over reality, and he’s felt his power building up gradually under his skin for years, like a caged animal begging to be released, so he just projects himself coming out of the attack unscathed, and that’s that.

“Interesting.” Akechi’s eyes glitter. “What else can you show me?”

* * *

Akira’s cognitive universe is not actually very exciting.

Back when he first discovered his power, he did some exploring, but nowadays he never spends more time in it than he has to; treating clients in his office means that their shadows are just _there_ when he crosses over, so he has no reason to go any further. There’s not much visible distortion either, nothing like Mementos – it’s relatively untainted without a ruler who wants anything to do with it, even if Akira can feel the air writhing around, reacting to him always – so it looks virtually identical to reality. There’s something unnerving about it, not yet crossing over the uncanny valley, but he’s sure if he suddenly passed over in the middle of Tokyo he wouldn’t even notice.

They end up leaving the clinic and walking around Shinjuku. It’s realistic down even to the shape of the loitering evening crowd. If Akira concentrates enough, some parts flicker in uncertainty. Chihaya’s stand shimmers in and out of existence, as if beckoned from his memory. But if he just lets himself go and loses himself in the crowd, the world stabilizes.

The normalcy of it all makes it feel rather silly to be walking around in costumes. Akechi seems curious about the realistic crowd and the way it pays no attention to him, just like real life. “Is there a cognition of me?” he asks.

Akira frowns. “This isn’t a palace.”

“It’s not Mementos, either,” Akechi says.

He shakes his head. “The people here, I don’t think they’re cognitions, in the sense we understand it. They’re just… people,” he explains. He feels it more than he knows it. “It feels like– I can manipulate the world here, and the real world acts like a mirror. It’s probably how Maruki could change stuff. If we didn’t stop him, once he gathered enough power, he could merge the two realities for good.”

“But there are shadows, too.”

“Probably because I _expect_ there will be shadows,” Akira says.

Akechi hums. “I did always wonder what my shadow would be like. Would you have changed my heart too?”

“No,” Akira says emphatically. “You would’ve hated that. And all the things that made you, _you–_ even the bad stuff, I wouldn’t have messed with that. I wouldn’t have changed what happened. Not that I wanted you to die, but you didn’t actually die in the end, anyways. So.”

“How romantic,” Akechi says. Akira hates how he can’t discern anything from his tone, and how much he wishes he could. “But the crimes of those whose hearts you changed were nothing compared to mine. Even Shido never pulled the trigger himself. You’d overlook that for my sake?”

_You were a victim too_ , Akira wants to say, but he knows Akechi would take that as an excuse. Would probably resent him for it. “I care about you,” he says instead, though it doesn’t feel any safer to admit.

“Very touching.” Akechi’s eyes glint darkly. “So you care about me and didn’t want me to die, and now you’re a god. If I had died, you could’ve brought me back, couldn’t you? Like Isshiki. Okumura.”

“I’ve never _tried_ ,” Akira says. “I’m not Maruki.” Maruki saved up power for a month for his actualization. Akira has had years.

“But you can.” Akechi rests his chin on his hand, appraising him. “Say you were just so stricken with grief, thinking I was dead and you couldn’t live without me. How would you have brought me back?”

Akira frowns and tugs at his gloves. “Don’t think _too_ highly of yourself.”

“Yes, I can hardly be accused of doing that, can I. Indulge me, Kurusu. I’m dead; now what?”

Akira sighs and scrubs his eyes. A million scenarios immediately come to mind. “I could just… remake you, if I wanted to. But it wouldn’t really be you, it would just be my idea of you. So I guess I’d have to alter the circumstances of your death, like how Maruki made sure I never turned myself in. I guess in this reality you didn’t hate me or yourself enough to carry out your plans. I probably managed to convince you to join us for real, to destroy your father together.”

“Flimsy, but I suppose that’s a start. How would you have convinced me to join you?”

Well, if Akechi is trying to push, he supposes he’ll push back. “You took me out on all those dates, and gradually we got closer and realized we had feelings for each other. We were so in love, I convinced you to give up on your lifelong dream of killing your father and elope with me instead.”

He regrets it as soon as he says it, hitting too close to his actual fantasies from right after the engine room, when he would spend all his time wondering what he could have done differently. If Akechi could have been persuaded, maybe– but then how, and then…

Something ripples around him, but Akechi doesn’t seem to notice. “Love conquers all,” he says. “Well, I suppose that’s a nice thought, but it wasn’t really enough for us in the end, was it?”

“Not enough for _you_ ,” Akira corrects him, and really hopes Akechi doesn’t hear the resentment in his voice. He’s so pathetic, because he can’t help adding, “You were the one who killed me.”

Akechi looks off into the crowd. “Well, maybe it could’ve been enough.”

There’s a sudden pressure in his head. “What?”

“If I’d… been more honest then,” says Akechi. “To you, and to myself, it would have been different.”

Akira imagines things being different, like he’s imagined hundreds of times before. He imagines Akechi’s affection for him those fleeting months had been honest, that there had been something real in his smiles after all, something that would have persuaded Akechi to give up his suicide mission and work with him to bring down Shido instead. He imagines Maruki’s threats having no sway over him, because Akechi never died and Akechi was his. Maybe it wouldn’t be so far-fetched.

The air pulses in warning. He stiffens, feeling the hair at the nape of his neck rising like static before a lightning strike. The metaverse is tingling with excitement now, reaching out to him, beckoning for him to give into the fantasy, the _power_.

_Careful, little one_ , Satanael murmurs to him, but he can barely hear over the pounding in his skull.

“I wouldn’t change anything,” he grits out.

“Pity,” says Akechi, “it was a pleasant train of thought. Imagine, us together from the start.”

Akira feels a flare of desire so strong he turns away and squeezes his eyes shut. Why is Akechi doing this? It’s not like he believes it. “We should… stop thinking about this.”

“Why?” asks Akechi.

“Can’t you feel it?” Akira says desperately. It itches. The pent up desire in him is threatening to spill out. He can feel the world reacting to every spike in his emotions, waiting for the right moment. “I can’t control it. Please, just stop.”

“Maybe I don’t want to,” Akechi pushes, his eyes dark and unreadable. “Maybe I wish I loved you more than I hated my father. Maybe a new reality would be better for us.”

“ _Stop_ ,” he hisses, and the air seems to vibrate with the sound of it. His mind feels like it’s splitting down the middle, synapses trying to tear each other apart. Akechi looks at him, and Akira doesn’t know what he sees but there must be something because his eyes immediately go wide. The crowd around them grinds to a halt, the world stopping to his command, and Akira can _feel_ it, his desire, dark and disgusting and crawling up his skin. The metaverse is pleased, curling up like a cat in the sun, calling him in even deeper. It waited so long to be finally embraced by its master, after all.

It’s funny, he manages to think. He's the one who’s supposed to be in control here, yet everything seems to be reacting now that he can feel everything threatening to slip from under him. Bile bubbles up his throat and he breathes slowly, once, twice– he fights down a wave of hysteria. His skin itches. It itches so much. He wants to scratch himself raw, peel apart his flesh, rip himself open.

It feels like an eternity before he summons enough lucidity to try and look at Akechi, to make sure he’s still real. He’s frozen like the rest of them, staring back at Akira in what must be confusion or fear, or could it be disgust? And the sight washes over Akira like ice water pouring over his spine, making his legs collapse under him. He doesn’t brace himself for the fall. It doesn’t matter; it doesn’t hurt. He fucked up. He let his stupid desires get the best of him, let himself be weak enough to _want_ , and now he’s let Akechi down all over again.

No, no. He can still fix this. He just needs to calm down. Think. Everything’s stopped, so he just needs to tell it to _stop_ stopping. Right. What’s the opposite of stop. Go? This isn’t a race. Resume? That sounds good. Maybe–

“–rusu. Akira!”

A pressure on his shoulder. Warmth. A solid body wraps around his own. It must be Akechi, but the real Akechi wouldn’t touch him. He hates being touched. His creation must have come for him. They were in love, and got married, or whatever it was that he said, and now _that_ Akechi is here.

The warmth is nice. Akechi rubs circles into his back, coos at him softly, like a lullaby. Tells him to breathe. Is this what it’s like for Akechi to love him back? That’s what he wanted once. So why is he shaking?

He surfaces for air.

“Akira,” Akechi is murmuring, “it’s okay. We’re back in Shinjuku.”

The world fades back in slowly. Everything is moving again. Shinjuku is all lights and motion and sound and Akechi. Oh god, Akechi. He pulled this Akechi back into the real world too, didn’t he?

He shoves the warmth away as hard as he can, hears an _oof_ for his effort. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he babbles. “I didn’t mean to. I ruined everything.”

“No,” says Akechi, sounding very far away. “No you didn’t. What are you saying? It’s fine.”

“You don’t understand– it’s _not_. It’s not fine. I made a mistake. I’m sorry.”

“Stop apologizing. You didn’t do anything wrong.”

“I did, it’s my fault, I’m going to fix it. I can fix it–”

“It’s _fine_ ,” Akechi says, nearly a snarl. “It’s my fault. I shouldn’t have provoked you.”

That strikes him as something off. Would his Akechi know about their conversation right before? In this new world, it shouldn’t have happened to begin with.

“What were we doing before this?” he asks, just about managing the courage to look Akechi in the face.

Akechi blinks at him. “I asked you to take me to the metaverse. I provoked you about… dying, how you’d bring me back.”

If Akira weren’t on the ground already he might have dropped to his knees in relief.

“I thought…” He buries his face in his hands. “I just, I felt it, like nothing I’ve ever felt before. Like I was going to snap.”

“It’s me, Akira. Everything’s fine. I’m fine. You didn’t do anything wrong.”

“It didn’t feel fine,” he says miserably. “That was really fucked up.”

“I didn’t think…” Akechi sighs like it’s being squeezed out of him. “It was my fault, for ignoring you when you said to stop. I’m sorry.”

He finds himself staring at the cracks in the ground. “I didn’t think I’d ever hear you say that.”

“It’s all the therapy,” Akechi says. Akira can’t tell if it’s a joke or not. “I’m not good at apologies or sincerity, or even empathy. I’m working on it. But you told me to stop, I crossed a boundary, and I’m sorry.”

Akechi was always a master of masks, rarely deviating from his controlled expressions up until he stopped caring and just let his rage fuel him, but he looks so thoroughly chastised at this moment that Akira lets out a horrifying giggle. “You’re right. You suck at this. You sound so rehearsed.”

“Well.” Akechi huffs, but to his credit doesn’t look upset at being laughed at. “I’ll work on it some more, then.”

Akira shakes his head. “You won’t need to apologize anymore. I was weak, and I let my emotions get the best of me. I won’t let it happen again.” He knows better now, knows exactly what went wrong. It can’t happen again. Won’t.

Akechi looks away and clears his throat. “I… appreciate the emotion,” he says delicately. “I mean. I wanted… I wasn’t saying all that just to provoke you.”

Akira knows he’s staring. It’s probably uncomfortable. He should say something, but he’s too tired to feel anything about the revelation. “Okay, I. I need to lie down and think,” he says.

“Right.” Akechi’s expression is tight. “I’ll help you back to the clinic.”

* * *

He feels on edge for the next week, watching out in case something did change, in case a little bit of his fantasy slipped past him and bled into the real world. But everything feels… weirdly normal, and that just sets him even more on edge.

Akechi texts him. Just one single text, perfect punctuation and all: _When you’re ready, talk to me_. Direct and impossible to discern tone, though he recognizes it as Akechi giving him space which is surprisingly considerate and self-aware of him, and makes doubt claw its way back before he snuffs it out.

_When he’s ready_. It’s been eight years. If he’s still not ready, will he ever be?

It’s funny, he’s used to helping out other people work through their problems, but he feels nearly helpless when it comes to himself. He has to think about it at some point though, so he does. He’s long accepted his feelings didn’t particularly matter, and if Akechi had felt anything in return it clearly hadn’t mattered enough to stop him either. But that’s in the past, and this is now.

Now: he still has feelings for Akechi. Has always had feelings for Akechi, even if they ebbed and waned over the years. Now: there’s a possibility Akechi has feelings back. And if he does, what then? They’re going to ride off into the sunset together, happily ever after?

Being hung up over a dead guy for a decade hasn’t exactly helped him adjust to functional, healthy relationships, that’s for sure. Add his feelings in with a complicated mix of guilt and obsession until he couldn’t tell if he was actually in love with Akechi or just the idea of fixing him, and it’s– it’s a mess. It was obvious from the start he needed to move on; he didn’t need to study psychology to know that. And it’s not like he didn’t try; he dated a few guys and girls back in college, pretty much agreed to whoever expressed interest in him while he was single, poured as much of himself into them as possible in hopes that maybe he could feel more for them than he did for Akechi.

He never did.

His longest relationship was with Sumire, and only so because he couldn’t bring himself to leave and she held out hope for far too long. She liked him, after all, and he liked her enough. She was so beautiful and kind and sweet, and yet still it hadn’t been enough for Akira. It hadn’t been what he wanted. He hated it so much, that he was always comparing her to a ghost. Akechi would never hold his hand, smile at him like he was the greatest thing in the world. Akechi wouldn’t follow Akira around like a devoted puppy. His head wouldn’t turn to find him the moment he entered the room the way a sunflower follows the sun. He hated that he thought that way, and he hated her a little for it too.

He was so cruel to her. She didn’t deserve that. She didn’t deserve someone who preferred a lover who didn’t touch him like he was perfect, a lover who was capable of killing him. She didn’t deserve a coward who couldn’t bring himself to end things earlier.

She was so kind that she didn’t even hold it against him when they broke up. She didn’t even call him pathetic for still being in love with a guy he thought had been dead for years. She didn’t talk to him for a while after, but it almost felt like she was doing it for his sake and not her own.

He hasn’t dated in over a year. It stopped mattering, because even after all of that, nothing had changed. Relationships are all about taking in and accepting the whole of another person, and letting them have the whole of you in turn. Even when they end, you come out different. But Akira never did.

In the back of his mind, he knows dating Akechi, or whatever his goal is, won’t fix him. He has his own problems – not even taking into consideration the fact that he’s got terrifying god powers that he doesn’t know the limits of, and doesn’t want to find out any time soon – and it would be unfair of him to expect years of repressing them would magically get better just by hearing Akechi say _I love you_.

But it _would_ be nice to hear. So there’s that.

Maybe he should go to a therapist himself, instead of using Morgana as his emotional sounding board. If only he had his own shadow he could beat into submission. Could he create one? Ugh, but that’s just taking the easy way out.

Against all rational thought, he ends up calling Akechi.

Akechi picks up on the third ring. “Kurusu,” he greets, perfectly polite, and Akira almost hangs up and throws his phone away right there. “Is something wrong?”

“Er, no. Well, maybe.” The best time to hang up was immediately, and the second best time is probably now. “I was just thinking, I guess. Didn’t mean to bother you.”

“Self-flagellation is a poor look on you,” says Akechi. “You’ve already bothered me. Just say what’s on your mind.”

“Right.” Akechi’s low tolerance for bullshit is surprisingly refreshing, but it’s kind of nice that he cares. Or, at least he pretends to. “I’m not good at relationships, you know,” he says, deciding to just skip the preamble.

“Would you like my advice?” Akechi asks pleasantly.

Akira finds himself muffling his laugh into the back of his hand. “You?”

“I’m perfectly qualified to discuss relationships with, don’t you agree?”

Akira hums, pretending to think about it. “I guess, let’s say there’s this guy I like, but things were complicated, he left and I never got over it. What should I do?”

“If he left, he wasn’t worth it,” says Akechi.

“That’s the thing,” he says, “he came back. And it kind of scares me how strongly I still feel for him. He should be scared of me too.”

Akechi is silent except for the quiet exhale of his breaths. “Why?”

_I almost destroyed the whole world for you_ , he thinks. How melodramatic. He’s almost disgusted with himself. “Akechi,” he says quietly, “you saw it for yourself. I don’t know if I can control myself around you.”

“This is a pretty shitty rejection,” Akechi says, his voice flat. “At least say it outright, instead of trying to frame it as for my own good.”

Akira wants to laugh, or scream, or something. In what universe could he have imagined himself _rejecting_ Akechi? “Akechi, you don’t know how much I thought about this. About changing things,” he says. “But I kept it in, because _you_ told me you didn’t want it. When you were saying those things, like you wanted it too, it was like a dam bursting. It was– fucking scary. I can’t let that happen again.”

“Then don’t,” Akechi says, like it’s the easiest thing in the world. “I’m alive. I never died. What more do you need? Why are you so hung over on hypotheticals when you have me now? Did you want that world so badly?”

“I…” Akira’s grip on his phone tightens. “Maybe not exactly. But I still _wanted_.” It didn’t matter, in the end, what his exact fantasy was. Just that it had power over him.

“And it turned out fine,” says Akechi.

“I wouldn’t have called it fine–”

“You had a bit of a fit. Things stopped for a while, is all. Nothing else happened, and nobody knows about it but us. Life goes on. The earth is still spinning.” Akechi sighs. He’s abrupt in the way someone who’s not used to helping others is, which shouldn’t be as endearing as it is. “If it counts for anything, I don’t think you would’ve really done it.”

“I’ve failed you before,” Akira says, shaking his head.

“I tried to kill you,” Akechi counters, clearly not willing to let Akira win whatever this is. “Twice. So we’re even. And I wouldn’t do it again, so you can’t pull anything else on me either, got it?”

“I…”

“Got it?” Akechi repeats.

Akira stares a hole into the floor. “Yeah, okay, got it.” He scratches at the nape of his neck. “Um, hah, actually, it’s kind of funny you’re the one trying to… console me, through all this.”

“Who else was going to? Your cat?”

He laughs. “Yeah, probably. I don’t have many people to open up to these days. Kinda surprised you actually helped. No offense.”

“None taken,” drawls Akechi. “Though I should express concern that I seem to be high on your list of people to open up to, given you’re calling me at midnight for this heart-to-heart.”

“The others are pretty busy these days. They know about the general things, but. Hard to have a heart-to-heart,” Akira says. “Not that I think you’re my last option, I mean. I just– I know what the others would tell me if they were here, but I don’t really… understand what you want, I guess.”

“What I want?”

“Yeah. You suddenly show up after all these years I thought you were dead, and act like–” He waves his free hand vaguely into the air. “Like nothing changed, maybe. Can’t really blame a guy for being confused.”

“I didn’t want anything,” says Akechi. “Like I said, my therapist thought it would be a good idea to reach out. I thought I would find you, see for myself you were fine and doing better without me, and go back to my life.”

“But you didn’t. You came back.”

Akechi sighs. “You realize, I haven’t had a lot of control over my own life between being a pawn for my father and being in prison. The metaverse was the only place I felt like I had any power. But then you told me what you were doing with it – or rather, what you weren’t doing with it – and I couldn’t let it be, I suppose.”

“Power is overrated,” says Akira.

He can almost hear the smile in Akechi’s voice as he says, “Yes, you _would_ think that. That’s what I always found infuriating about you. You always had what I didn’t, things I wanted but couldn’t dream of, and you never seemed to care. It made me happy when I hurt you, to bring you down to my level.”

Akira hopes his phone doesn’t pick up the hitch in his breath. “It made me happy when you hurt me too,” he says softly. “It made me feel like I could understand you a bit better.”

“Hm.” Akechi’s tone is neither approving nor disapproving. “We’re quite the pair aren’t we?”

“Yeah.” He finds himself smiling. “We are.”

* * *

Akechi doesn’t bother to knock this time, pushing his way into Akira’s office without so much as a hello.

_At least he had the decency to arrive after hours today_ , Akira manages to think, keeping a careful distance between them.

Akechi’s eyes sweep over him. “We’re going to the metaverse,” he says.

“What?” says Akira. “No, we’re not.”

Akechi’s stare is unimpressed. Akira glowers back stubbornly. Morgana glances back and forth between the two of them. “Uh, sorry, _we?_ ” he says.

“Yes, we,” says Akechi. “Kurusu and me.”

Morgana’s tail swishes. “Akira, is there something you forgot to tell me?”

Akira sighs, pinching his eyes shut. “Do I have to?”

He doesn’t, because Akechi briefly fills Morgana in instead, with all the patience of someone unexpectedly saddled with dealing with a particularly dull child. Morgana bristles in annoyance, at either Akechi’s tone or being kept out of the loop, or both, and sidles closer to Akira. “I want to go too,” he says.

“I need to speak with Kurusu,” Akechi says. “Alone.”

Morgana narrows his eyes. “Why can’t you just do it here then?”

“It’s okay, Mona.” Akira resists the urge to sigh again. “He’s not going to hurt me. But, uh, you have a point. Akechi, can you at least explain why we can’t just talk out here?”

“You said I should be scared of you, but the truth is, I’m not,” Akechi says. “You didn’t hurt me, I know you weren’t going to, and we’re going to prove that. You just need an outlet.”

“Okay. That doesn’t explain anything.”

Akechi’s stare is withering, but lacks any real annoyance. “You went out of control because you couldn’t handle your emotions, and you have some hang ups about me specifically. It stands to reason that you need to actually deal with them, instead of whatever you’ve been doing all these years, and it won’t mean much to do this outside the metaverse.”

“So, this is like… exposure therapy,” he says. The irony that Akechi, of all people, is telling him how to deal with his emotions is not lost on him.

Akechi smiles, sharp. “Ah, good, you get it. Maybe you did earn that degree after all.”

Morgana hisses, and Akira is a little flattered his friend is loyal enough to be offended on his behalf. “Akira, you can figure out how to take me too, can’t you? You said you could,” Morgana says. “You can’t just leave me here.”

He squats down and pats Morgana apologetically. “It’s… probably better this way.”

Morgana tucks his paws under himself and fixes him with an incredulous, baleful look that says, _we’re going to talk about this_. Akira figures he can deal with that later. He stands, smoothing his hands over his pants, and makes eye contact with Akechi.

“Well? Lead the way,” Akechi says, hand on his cocked hip. His fingers are clawlike, black gloves contrasting against his beige coat.

Akira closes his eyes and imagines them on him, pushing him under the surface of a lake, pushing him so deep Akechi follows him down until they’re both submerged. Morgana is no longer there when he opens his eyes. His office looks the same as it always has.

“Okay,” Akira says slowly. “We’re here. What now?”

Akechi doesn’t answer right away. Instead, he silently slides off his mask and throws it to the floor, then follows that with the bottom half of his black maw. The gauntlets fall quickly after. It strikes Akira that he’s only seen both of Akechi’s hands bare once before. Without all the armor he looks… vulnerable. Somehow it feels more intimate than that time they took a bath together, probably because he’d been trying so hard not to stare at the time and right now all he _can_ do is stare.

“Touch me,” says Akechi.

The metaverse shudders.

“Oh,” Akira gasps out, shuddering too. “That’s– a lot to throw at me. Maybe we should start slower. Go on a date first.”

Akechi rolls his eyes. He takes Akira’s hand, peels the glove off, letting their fingers curl together briefly as he guides the hand up to caress his face. Akira’s fingers move on their own from there, curling over his cheek. Akechi’s skin is soft – tender, even – under the pads of his fingers, and he watches, fascinated, as Akechi leans just the tiniest bit into his touch and closes his eyes. The touch is electrifying, little sparks dancing where their skin meets.

“Good?” asks Akechi.

Akira laughs nervously. “I should be asking you that.”

This is fine, he tells himself. This is manageable. The metaverse is blurring a bit at the seams but there are no stakes now, no risk of him accidentally rewriting existence as he knows it with a careless thought, not when Akechi is right here. He’s right here and Akira doesn’t have to remake him to be alive or to love him. The realization encourages him to remove his other glove with his teeth to cup Akechi’s face with both hands.

Akechi is warm under him. Alive. Vaguely, he realizes this must mean his hands are cold, which is probably unpleasant, but Akechi doesn’t seem inclined to complain so it must be okay. A thought occurs to him, an old impulse that no longer needs to be resisted. Akechi’s hair is as soft as he’s always imagined it would be, free of tangles as his fingers run through it. He wonders if Akechi would let him pull it back and tie it into a ponytail, or leave tiny braids in his hair.

Akechi’s eyes blink open, urging him further. His lashes are pretty.

He obeys.

His hands find their way back to Akechi’s face. One makes its way down past his jaw, to the pulse point, feeling for a beat. His other thumb traces circles into Akechi’s skin before finding its way to his lower lip, hooking onto the soft flesh. Akechi watches him the whole time without blinking.

“Kurusu,” he starts to say, but Akira uses the opportunity to slip his thumb past his lips, his fingernail catching on Akechi’s teeth. Akechi’s pulse jumps under his fingers.

“You should call me Akira. It’ll feel more real that way. And I liked when you said it before.”

Akechi purses his lips, or at least tries to anyways, because he just draws Akira’s thumb in further. “Akira,” he says around him, and Akira feels it just as much as he sees it, the way Akechi slackens at the _A_ , his teeth bite his skin at _ki_ , and his lips wrap around his finger like a kiss at _ra_.

The ground lurches beneath his feet. Akira pulls away and rests his hands on Akechi’s shoulders to steady himself.

“Akira,” Akechi tries again, then a few more times to get Akira used to it, before hitting him with, “You can call me Goro.”

“Oh,” is all Akira can say. Goro. He’s only reserved the name for his deepest, most shameful fantasies, the kinds where he imagined them waking up together bathed in the sun’s rays. Goro. Go- _ro_.

The metaverse feels like it’s stabilized a bit, which is weird because Akira’s heart is definitely not stable, the way it’s threatening to explode out of his chest and scatter little shrapnel bits of itself all over his cognitive office.

“I’m going to kiss you,” Goro says. “If you have a problem with that, say it now.”

Akira doesn’t manage to say anything because his brain short-circuits, but he wouldn’t have said no anyways. He should say no, because he’s not entirely sure he’s not just going to combust for real if they do kiss, but that’s drowned out by the fact that he would be happy to risk it regardless. Goro takes Akira’s mask off and snakes a hand up the back of Akira’s neck, fingers tangling at the base of his hair, pulling him in–

–and it’s okay.

He doesn’t combust. It’s overwhelming, but he also isn’t thinking about very much either, besides how much he needs this and how nice Goro’s lips feel on his own, so it’s easy to lose himself in the feeling. Goro doesn’t waste time being timid or gentle, immediately diving into Akira’s mouth like he's coming home, like he wants to take over him, inside and out, and Akira is more than willing to give all of himself back.

His coat slides off him with some assistance. A warm hand finds its way under his shirt, tracing the muscle there. Akira shivers at the feeling of Goro’s bare palm against his skin. He would return the favor, but he’s not entirely sure Goro’s outfit is even meant to be taken off, the way it has no distinct top or bottom. Maybe he needs to take off some belts. Or he could just skip the physics and logic and just _imagine_ it coming off, and it would just happen.

That’s too much to worry about while Goro’s tongue glides against his own. For now, he settles on cupping his hand around Goro’s ass and reveling in the way he gasps into Akira’s mouth.

He doesn’t know how long they make out. At some point they navigate to the couch, Goro fitting perfectly into his lap. His hands explore everywhere he can reach. The dip of his back, the vertebrae up his spine. The muscles tensing as Goro shifts under him. His hips, his waist, slim yet solid under his palms. Upwards to his ribs, where he digs his fingers in until he imagines he can slip them right between each bone. The thin fabric of Goro’s outfit feels like skin by proxy.

There are moments where he can feel his control slipping, when he has to pull back and breathe. At one point, a stupid, insecure part of his brain thinks, _I hope he’s enjoying this as much as I am_ , and he’s flooded with a rush of emotion that isn’t his own, oscillating with his own pleasure and amplifying it further like two complementing wavelengths.

That nearly breaks him there, the sudden intensity of it. He pulls away, fists his hands in the fabric on Goro’s shoulders and buries his face in Goro’s chest.

“Do you want to stop?” asks Goro.

“No, just. Give me a moment.”

He closes his eyes and breathes in, waits for his brain to settle. Goro plays idly with his hair, kissing the crown of his head. Akira still feels ready to burst.

When he looks up, the metaverse seems brighter, rosier. Light blurs and dances around like bokeh. Goro’s taking it in with an open wonder that makes Akira want to kiss him again, so he does.

It’s slower, more purposeful in a way he could have never imagined Goro being. The Goro of his fantasies had always been wild and vicious, taking as much as he could from Akira, and Akira would let him. Any version of him he created would have eaten him alive. But he could never imagine the exact way Goro’s mouth curls against his in a wicked smile, the way his fingers scratch at his scalp and pull Akira’s head back, not gently but cruelly either.

Goro licks at his jaw before his teeth fix onto his jugular, the little bit of skin peeking over his collar, and he _bites_. Akira moans in surprise, clutching desperately at him. Goro’s tongue flattens over the bite, before sucking, and Akira bucks his hips up in response.

He’s suddenly very aware that he’s hard.

Goro is too, if the way he grinds down is any indication. His hands are already falling to Akira’s pants, freeing his cock. Goro doesn’t give Akira any time to breathe before he spits into his hand and slicks Akira up, and Akira nearly cries just at the contact.

“It’s– ngh– it’s not fair,” he manages to get out as Goro starts working the shaft without hesitation, fingers exploring him deftly. “I have no idea how to undress you.”

Goro grins at him. In an instant, his clothes dissolve into white, and god, Akira had forgotten how lovely he looked in this outfit. “Better?” he asks.

“My prince,” Akira says, lunging up for a kiss. He can at least locate where Goro’s pants begin now, and they slip over his hips easily. He pulls Goro closer to him with one hand, taking them both in the other. Goro groans and bucks into his fist, wet friction against Akira’s cock.

“Fuck. You feel– so good,” Akira gasps as they find a rhythm. It’s slick and hot and entirely too much, but not in a bad way. Not in the way where he’s afraid it’s going to spill into the metaverse. It’s too much in every beautiful little whine and gasp Goro makes, the slide of skin against skin, the sting of Goro’s nails under his shirt sinking into his back. It’s the culmination of nearly a decade of complicated feelings laid bare. It’s too much so he loses himself in the bliss of it, chasing only the feeling of Goro.

Goro sinks his teeth into the spot on Akira’s neck as he comes, though it does little to muffle his groan. Akira comes only a few strokes later, spilling between the both of them as his mind whites.

There’s a pop, and Akira worries maybe his heart finally did explode, and the little bits of fleshy shrapnel are probably going to hit Goro, which is concerning and gross, but when he opens his eyes he’s still intact. There are more pops, but also flashes of light, and Akira only needs to look around to find the source of them are _fireworks_ , exploding all over his tiny cluttered office.

The idea that Goro gave him an orgasm so explosive it literally set off fireworks is a little mortifying.

“How cute,” says Goro. The fireworks bounce off his cognac eyes like little sparkling stars. He looks like he’s going to laugh, and Akira really wants to hear it even though he would be laughing _at_ him. Akira is pretty sure his rib cage isn’t big enough for the swelling of his heart.

“That was, um, good,” he says dumbly once the fireworks finally stop. He suddenly feels spent.

“I’d say it was a success,” Goro agrees, sounding terribly amused.

“Mm,” Akira manages to vocalize. Every spark of energy he had in him fizzled out with the fireworks, and now he thinks he could sleep for the next hundred years. His head feels too heavy for his neck, so he lets it drop forward, lets Goro’s shoulder catch him, and the last thing he hears is his name.

* * *

Akira is dreaming.

He knows he’s dreaming because he doesn’t dream much, but when he does his dreams are always blue. Sometimes it’s an empty jail where all the inmates have escaped, other times a rapidly ascending elevator or the interior of a limousine, but most times it’s just empty, stretching as far as he can see. It didn’t usually stay that way for long, because he’s always been a lucid dreamer, but the novelty of being in control of his own subconscious wore off after a while.

Now that he thinks about it, the metaverse feels a lot like lucid dreaming sometimes.

For now he feels like wandering, so he does, but his feet don’t seem to take him anywhere in the endless expanse of blue. Is he even moving? Does it matter? He walks, and walks, long enough that his feet should probably hurt. Eventually he spots something in the distance, and makes his way towards it. There’s no real gauge of how far anything is in here; it could be minutes or hours before he can make out anything except a vague speck.

When he reaches it, he sees someone he’d almost forgotten about.

Lavenza looks up at him and smiles. The last he’d seen her, back when he first awakened to his powers, she looked sad. She apologized to him, but about what, he can’t remember. Now–

The dream shatters.

Consciousness fades back in all at once. He's aware he’s still in the metaverse, so in some ways this is just an extension of a dream. There’s a hand brushing through his hair, grounding him back in the present. His head is on Goro’s lap, and Goro himself seems to have taken care to put his pants back on. Above him is the man himself, staring back with an indecipherable expression. Akira’s heart does a few backflips.

“You were out for a bit,” explains Goro. “Probably did too much at once.”

It feels like he was out forever, but it apparently wasn't long enough for the come to dry, judging from the cold, damp mess on his shirt. He should do something about that. At least it seems like Goro wiped them down otherwise, which was nice of him.

Akira hums in agreement. “Felt good, though.” He grins up at Goro’s face. It’s not the most flattering angle, but the way Goro’s hair falls in waves around his cheeks is pretty nonetheless.

“Yes, that hardly needed to be said.”

Akira feels his body heat up at the mischievous glint in Goro’s eyes. “Morgana’s… probably waiting for us,” he says with a wince, though he doesn’t try to get up.

Goro doesn’t seem in a rush to leave either, grimacing down at him. “I would really rather not talk about your sentient cat when I have your come on my shirt.”

Akira hums in agreement, and they fall into a comfortable silence. The hand continues playing with his hair. It’s still weird, being comforted by Goro, but far from unpleasant. It’d be easy to fall asleep again. His head feels clearer than he remembers it ever being, like he’s purged all the dead weight. He thinks he could lie here, in this world of his own making with Goro below him, above him, all around him, forever.

_You could_ , a conspiratory voice whispers to him. _Forever is nothing._

He buries the thought.

His hand reaches blindly for Goro, and he feels fingers wrap against his own and squeeze. “Talk to me,” he says.

Fingernails scratch at his scalp. “What about?”

He considers it for a moment. “How did you survive?”

That’s the final part of the puzzle, he thinks, the piece he’s been missing this entire time. In Maruki’s reality, Goro hadn’t been able to answer the question, like he’d just been plucked out of thin air and placed right in Shibuya on Christmas Eve to conveniently take the fall for Akira. That’s why he’d so easily convinced himself Goro had never made it off the ship.

“Everything was a blank, for a while,” Goro says. “I woke up on Christmas Eve and found you– and you know the rest. But the blanks started filling themselves in after.” He frowns, staring at the opposite wall. “I was alive, just barely. The shot didn’t hit anything vital. Shido’s cognition was pretty bad off, but he managed to drag me out of the room and throw me overboard. Turns out if you drift far enough from a palace, you end up back in the real world.”

Akira isn’t sure that’s true, though he hadn’t exactly explored much outside the palaces, aside from Futaba’s desert and Sae’s interrogation room. Nowadays, it wouldn’t matter how far off he wandered in the metaverse, because it would just follow him anywhere he went.

“I had a gap in my memories because I was in and out of consciousness from my injuries, and then Maruki happened. For a while all I could remember was waking up in a hospital,” Goro continues. “That’s where I was when we returned to reality. I didn’t have anywhere to go after, so I just turned myself in.”

“I wish you would’ve come to me,” Akira says. “But I get why you didn’t.”

Goro sighs. “Forgiving as ever. You always did trust me too much.”

“Yeah, always.” Akira traces Goro’s jawline with his eyes, watching the way the lines of his throat move when he talks. “I wanted you to trust me too.”

Goro’s jaw clenches, a slight but visible twitch. “I wanted to trust you, back then,” he says. “I think I did trust you, as much as I could trust anyone. And I trust you now. You’re the only person I’ve ever trusted.”

Akira swallows down the lump in his throat. “That’s kind of unhealthy.”

The corner of Goro’s lip quirks. “That’s how I am,” he says.

“Yeah.” He’s not going to tell himself whatever he has with Goro is perfect, or even that it was ever good for either of them, but he still finds himself wanting it regardless. And they’re actually _talking_ things through in a way he could never have envisioned himself doing, even if it’s years too late. After today, it feels like anything is possible. There’s no time limit, no deadline hanging over their heads now. “So what now? Don’t tell me this is it.”

“You were the one trying to convince me otherwise.”

“Yeah, well– your dick felt nice. Sue me.”

Goro huffs, the puff of air ghosting Akira’s face. “I could be convinced to do this again.”

Akira laughs and plays with their joined fingers. “You enjoyed it.”

“It _was_ nice to have my own private fireworks show.”

“Oh my god, you’re never going to let me live that down, will you?” Goro smiles at him. “Okay, if that means you won’t disappear for another eight years I guess I can deal with it.”

“Only if I get to see more.”

Akira pretends to be annoyed, scrunching his face, but the idea of Goro being willing to stick around soon makes a smile of his own creep in. “You were right, you know.”

“Of course I am,” says Goro. “But what are you referring to, specifically?”

“This helped, a little,” he says. “I had a lot of shit going on for a while that I just ignored.” He clenches and unclenches his free hand, wiggles his fingers. The metaverse seems pleased with him. “The whole time I was just running away. This didn’t… make things easier, exactly. There were a few times I thought I’d lose control. But I didn’t.”

Goro looks down at him, urging him to continue.

“When I found out about this power, I told myself it was okay as long as I was only using it to help people who came to me. I tried to be so careful. I’d think about you, and how much you’d hated Maruki’s reality, how much you’d hate _me_ , and it stopped me from doing anything stupid.” He laughs. “I was still pretty stupid, though. I guess I just needed you to show me that.”

“It sounds like what you really need is a babysitter,” Goro says airily. “Someone to keep you straight.”

“Are you volunteering? You sure you don’t want me to hire you?” He wiggles his eyebrows. “You can keep me in line. Punish me when I do something wrong.”

“Must you tease?”

Akira laughs. “Fine, we’ll talk about this later. But for now… just stay?”

Goro squeezes his hand. His Adam’s apple bobs. “I didn’t let myself want things before,” he says. “I wasn’t planning to live long enough. But now I can’t help but feel greedy.”

He brings their interlaced hands to his lips and presses soft kisses to Goro’s knuckles. “I’m glad. You can be greedy with me. Stay.”

Goro meets him halfway when he leverages himself up for a kiss. “Okay,” he says, with just enough wonder on his face to mirror Akira’s own. “I’ll stay.”

The depth of affection, of _satisfaction_ that courses through Akira as their lips meet for another kiss nearly stuns him, but he finds he’s not worried. The metaverse is content for now, and so is he.


End file.
